Thursday 25 November 1999 at 12h00.
Introduction
On behalf of the Central Committee and the entire membership of the SACP we bring you fraternal and revolutionary greetings. We are particularly honoured for the invitation to address your very important congress; in particular because your union represents some of the most exploited sections of South Africa’s working class. The fact that you are holding a national congress shows that despite the difficulties that the union still faces, there is growth and movement forward, which can only be in the interests of the immense majority of the workers in the rural areas and farms.
The political context within which your Congress takes place Your Congress takes place only months after the overwhelming majority of the people of our country, not least the rural masses, have voted the ANC back into its second term of governing. This is indeed an important advance for workers who have benefited immensely from the first five years of democratic government. Many of the gains made have direct effect in the struggle to improve the conditions of agricultural workers. For instance, the passage of the Basic Conditions of Employment Act is an important milestone for agricultural workers, who are still working under slave-like conditions. The comprehensive application of the Labour Relations Act can only lay a stronger foundation for the protection of rights of farm and agricultural workers.
As the South African Communist Party we warmly welcome government’s intention to set a minimum wage for farm and domestic workers. We can only applaud government for this and merely emphasise the need to speed up the process of the establishment of a minimum wage. Government laws and policies to protect farmworkers from arbitrary evictions and recognition of their rights of occupation and access to land have also transformed the situation relating to tenure. In addition, the provision of clean drinking water, schools, electricity and telephones in many rural areas has led to an enormous improvement in the lives of rural people in many parts of our country.
However, despite this progress and opportunities, the core problem of poverty in rural areas has hardly been touched. This is worsened by the massive job losses that we have experienced in recent years, which continue to threaten more jobs in the foreseeable future. In other words, much as progressive legislation is being passed less and fewer workers are benefiting from this due to the high levels of retrenchments. We are indeed heartened by the recent indications of growth in GDP figures. However, the concern is that this is not translating to significant jobs, which for us is the key indicator in the improvement of lives of the ordinary mass of the people in the rural areas.
In our National Strategy Conference the SACP focused its attention on the situation in the rural areas in a manner that we had not done for a long time. This was informed by the realisation that unless there is a better life for the rural areas, there can be no better life for all in our country. Also, we are heartened by the fact that the SACP seems to be growing faster in rural than in urban areas over the last year or two. For instance, forty percent of South Africans live in rural areas, of whom the overwhelming majority is African. The most numerous and significant class stratum in the countryside is that made up of landless rural masses and agricultural workers. It is estimated that 58% of black South Africans, mainly African, live in former bantustans, of whom 69% are women. It is no surprise therefore that 49% of the entire South African population is classified as poor, 59% of whom are women. In addition it is estimated that 70% of all African school-going children are in rural and farm schools. These schools represent some of the most poorly resourced schools, more than 30% of whom do not have toilets at all, and the majority of toilets, where they exist, are pit latrines. This is all indeed the legacy of apartheid and capitalist exploitation in South Africa’s countryside.
Much more seriously is that the legacy of apartheid in the rural has hardly been touched. In the South African countryside are still found some of the most repressive practices that characterised the apartheid era. Indeed we might say that unfortunately little has changed if at all for many rural people who find themselves in white-owned farms and property. Significant sections of the white agricultural community, backed by right-wing organisations, continue to flout and disregard the laws protecting the rights of workers and their families. This is worsened by relatively poor organisation in the countryside. The key task in the rural areas still remains that of liberating the mass of the rural people from the clutches of a conservative white elite.
Your Congress is also taking place at a time when there is a generalised offensive against the working class in our country, in particular the organised black working class. You are being castigated as unions as representing an elite, which is spoilt and that is only concerned about its narrow, selfish interests. This, by implication, includes you, representing some of the worst exploited sections of South Africa’s working class! This intensified offensive is nothing other than part of the struggle to secure South Africa as a capitalist country, serving the interests of a small elite, at the direct expense of you the workers. It is also an attempt to turn the democratic victory, which you sacrificed for, including laying down your lives, into a victory for a few, with a deliberate attempt to demonise and exclude workers.
As the SACP we wish to say that we will be with you in the trenches to defend the dignity, freedom and rights of the working class and the poor in this country. We will jointly struggle to defend workers’ jobs and to defend the interests of the working class in general.
Conditions of workers in South African agricultural business and farms
Within the context of the situation characterised above, I do not need to tell you that the conditions of agricultural workers are amongst the worst in the country. As the SACP we are acutely aware that you are organising in a sector that is characterised by some of the most exploitative economic practices, faced with a layer of South African society that still represents some of the most reactionary forces. We are also acutely aware and seriously concerned that most of the workers you organise suffer from poverty and repressive practices, enjoying little or no decent labour and human rights.
As the SACP we are also acutely aware of the fact that most South African farms still represent the last bastion of apartheid rule and labour practices, including slave-like working conditions and wages. South Africa’s rural proletariat is like the hidden and forgotten component of the working class, where in some instances you are not even allowed to bury your relatives in the very farms you having been staying at for decades, if not generations. Yet it is claimed that organised workers represent an elite, and this can only be an insult and an affront to your dignity. This denigration and attack is done in the name of strengthening capitalism, disguised and presented as the only development path for our country.
As the SACP we understand the challenge that South Africa’s workers can never be truly free from the legacy of apartheid whilst agricultural workers still face these conditions. The struggle of agricultural workers is a struggle for the working class as a whole. Your union has an enormous task of playing a critical role in the liberation of the South African countryside. This is because agricultural workers occupy a strategic economic location in South Africa’s agricultural sector, and therefore their mobilisation is a crucial lever in breaking the back of repression, exploitation and poverty in the rural areas. It is therefore important that as you deliberate in this Congress, you understand the enormity of the tasks that are on your shoulders so that you develop appropriate strategies to accelerate the organisation of agricultural workers.
Criminality and violence in South Africa’s countryside
As the SACP we are concerned and strongly condemn the violence in farms. We condemn every death in the farms, farmworker or farmer. As a matter of fact the SACP is placing very high priority in combating crime generally in our country. We are currently preparing our plans of throwing our full weight behind fighting crime. Of course thousands of communists already play an important role in this front, but we want to intensify even further, within the context of the Alliance and government programme, in building Crime Policing Forums, and particularly fighting crime directed against women.
However we similarly condemn the very one-sided presentation of crime and violence in the rural areas. Mainstream media and some right-wing political organisations want to present crime in the rural areas as if it is affecting only white farmers. This is a dangerously irresponsible attitude, which does not help us at all in combatting crime. Indeed we are pleased to note that government and the security forces are making some important breakthroughs in the arrest of perpetrators of crime in the farms. The challenge still remains setting up adequate mechanisms that involve both farmworker and farmer in preventing these violent crimes.
The reality in the rural areas, particularly in the farms, is that the most insidious crime and violence that the media and these reactionary political organisations ignore or deliberately distort is the violence directed against black farmworkers and their families. In many of South Africa’s farms black farmworkers are still being treated like slaves and subjected to all manner of violence – both physical and emotional. Worsening the situation is the fact that elements of the old order who are still in the police and in the judiciary continue to ignore or treat this violence very lightly. These actions are racist and shortsighted and can only worsen the violence and criminality in the farms.
As the SACP we are of the view that the basis to tackling all crime and violence in the farms is through tackling the violence directed at black farmworkers. There can be no eradication of crime without eradicating the total of violent behaviour daily directed towards black farmworkers. As the SACP we call upon government to classify these daily crimes being committed against black farmworkers as representing serious crimes, and to be treated by the courts accordingly. The challenge therefore is to develop a strategy to unite those enlightened sections of the white farming community, the farmworkers and communities to fight crime, including crime directed at workers. Organised and mobilised farm and agricultural workers are an important component in our strategy to combat crime in the countryside. This is an issue that your Congress will have to look into within the overall strategy of building a strong SAAPAWU
Strategic challenges facing the rural working class and SAAPAWU
I would like to conclude my speech by highlighting other key strategic challenges facing the rural proletariat and SAAPAWU in particular.
Overall, our challenge is that there can be no democracy without a strong working class in South Africa, in particular a strong and organised rural proletariat. Those who are seeking to exclude the working class from enjoying the fruits of its struggle are fighting a losing battle.
With these words we wish you a successful Congress
Blade Nzimande
General Secretary, SACP
Issued by:
SACP Dept. of Information & Publicity
<sacp1@wn.apc.org>
South African Communist Party
Head Office
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